In The Company of Strangers
by Trinket-and-Darkholme
Summary: Panem City's DHS deems Mrs. Everdeen unfit as a parent, and removes the girls... but Katniss didn't expect her and Prim to go to different homes! This is an 80s AU featuring grumpy Foster Victors and excitable Foster Escorts, a search for a sister, and an unlikely family. (Currently on hiatus for plot reworking, will return after NaNoWriMo)
1. Two Steps Away From The County Line

_AN/ Standard disclaimers to my general audience readers apply: this story will eventually contain the corporal punishment of teenagers by a parental authority figure. Disclaimer to my kink audience applies thusly: this is a story_ with _spanking, not a Spanking Story._

 _If all goes according to plan, updates will be weekly. Enjoy, and please drop me a line if you like it, hate it, have ideas or questions, et cetera._

 ** _Chapter 1: Two Steps Away From the County Line_**

Katniss scowled at the headrest in front of her, and clenched her fingers tighter around the seat belt on her waist. There was an empty space beside her on the back bench seat of the social worker's car, where only twenty minutes before, her little sister had sat. In the trunk, there was a garbage bag full of Katniss' clothes and a few school books, and a handful of random things she'd swiped off the top of her dresser to land in the bag without really looking at them.

Katniss was furious. With the social worker, with the police, sure. With her pinch-faced manager back at the diner, of course. But mostly she was furious with herself. Because of her own stupid actions, her and Prim had been taken from their dingy little apartment in the Seam neighborhood on the west end of town, where Katniss had managed to carve out a living for them for the past several years on her own ingenuity and persistence. She had known better than to steal anything from the diner, let alone money from the register - she really had. But she'd done it anyway. Whether she'd gotten too cocky and complacent or whether she'd just been too hungry and tired to think quite right, she didn't know. At this point, she could barely remember how she'd ended up in the puttering old car, its worn seats smelling like dogs and covering her threadbare jeans in a coat of black hairs. All she could think was, _my fault, my fault_. Prim was gone, dropped off in front of some huge apartment on a street whose name Katniss hadn't been able to read in the dark.

Katniss hadn't even been allowed to go in with Prim or Miss Cardew. She'd had to stay in the car, smelling her new caseworker's labradors and wondering what kind of welcome her little sister was getting. Wondering if the people she was going to stay with were nice, if she would eat well, and if Prim would know now she should keep her mouth shut. Katniss could kick herself, she was so mad - she'd been afraid of getting found out by child services for a long time now, she should have told Prim not to say anything to anyone who ever came knocking at their door. If the police had just thought Katniss was a delinquent, if they hadn't gone inside the apartment and seen their mother zoned out and seen how little food was in the cabinets, maybe Katniss would just be spending a night in a jail cell to get scared straight, and maybe she'd be able to go home in the morning. She could get a new job, pay a fine, and go back to her mission in life: keeping Prim fed, safe, and happy.

But Katniss _wasn't_ going home. She wasn't sure where she was going at all. She and Prim had been allowed fifteen minutes and given a garbage bag each to stuff their things in before they were removed from the home, and it had been more important to Katniss to try and hug and comfort Prim in the back of the car than it had been to pay _attention_ to where they were going. That was her third mistake that night. Her first, of course, had been stealing the money. Her second had been assuming that she and Prim would be put up in the same home. Why would they separate sisters? Who would separate her from Primrose?

Panem's Department of Human Services would, apparently. They'd driven somewhere near the northern end of the sprawling city they lived in, if Katniss' sense of general direction was correct. It was a pretty ritzy part of town, so at least Katniss knew whoever was taking care of Prim wasn't doing it solely for the stipend foster homes received each month for looking after other people's kids. Katniss had thankfully been able to avoid the system herself, but had heard stories from a couple of kids in her and Prim's combined K through 12 school. It wasn't always pretty. In fact, it often was not. There was a reason Katniss tried to avoid it.

She glared out the window then, not recognizing the neighborhood but feeling more at home in the familiar setting of filthy sidewalks and broken windows. It was an obviously rough part of town, and the people that lived here were usually just as tough to handle as the streets themselves. It was where Katniss had grown up, all she had ever known, and a place she felt comfortable. The engine rumbled, sputtered, and eventually stopped when the car was outside a squat, two-story building that had once most likely been brilliantly white. Now, it was grey, with paint chipping off the bricks and rusting bars over the windows. Fulvia Cardew, her no-nonsense caseworker, barked that this was it, and opened Katniss' door on her way to the back of the car to pop the trunk. Katniss got out, apparently too slow for Cardew's liking, because the unpleasant woman snapped her fingers at her to get her moving.

Scowling, Katniss stalked around to the back of the car, grabbed her bag out, and pulled it hastily to her chest when Cardew nearly caught the end of it as she closed the trunk. The last thing she needed was for the bag to rip; her things looked trashy enough in the Hefty bag without having to be retrieved from the street as well.

Fulvia led her with a barely-there hand on her elbow, not to the front door as Katniss expected, but around the alleyway on the side of the building and into a back yard of sorts. Katniss raised a questioning eyebrow when they passed, of all things, a pen full of geese settled down for the night in the scraggly grass. Then it was up a rickety wooden staircase and Cardew was rapping on the faded grey door.

"Did I read the sign right?" Katniss asked while they waited for any kind of answer. "Are we at a boxing gym?"

"The man who owns it lives above it," Cardew explained, and Katniss thought she saw her roll her eyes. But maybe it was just a reflection on her glasses from the floodlights below. "This is an apartment. Although I'm starting to wonder if he doesn't live in the gym, itself!"

She turned and headed down the staircase once more, and Katniss had to press herself back against the railing to get out of the way in time for her to go down. Now rolling her own eyes, she followed Cardew, back down the stairs, around the building, leaving honking geese in their much louder retreat.

Fulvia wasted little time in knocking loudly on the gym's front doors and ringing the nearby buzzer. It took a full minute of this before they heard some noise from inside - an indistinct voice and some shuffling. A light came on and Katniss peeked from behind Fulvia, trying to see in the wire-lined windows. A shape from somewhere inside came forward more and more until she could make out the form of a man.

Said man just glared at them and asked through the door, "what do you want?"

"Haymitch Abernathy?" Fulvia said, then pressed on without waiting for an answer, "I'm Miss Cardew, I'm here with a foster child in need of placement."

Katniss watched the man, who looked downright exhausted. His hair was long, a sort of dishwater blond, and his face was unshaven. He pressed the heel of his hand against his brow, stepped away a bit, and pulled a clanking ring of keys off the wall somewhere to his right. He opened the front doors and Fulvia stepped in, quick and businesslike.

"Well why in hell did you bring her _here_?" Haymitch demanded, looking at Katniss for half a moment before returning his attention fully to the caseworker. Katniss glared back at him, though he didn't seem to notice. "Listen, I haven't had a kid here in years. There is no damn reason for you to bring me one now. Put her somewhere else. Anyway you know what happened to my… You know that I'm single, now, and I thought you didn't put kids in homes with single men."

Fulvia held up her clipboard, though she didn't show either of them what was on it.

"I am aware of your marital situation, and while we at the department do give our condolences, there really is no other place to put her. The foster system in this county, really in the whole state, is simply overrun. Katniss is… Well, to be frank, Mr. Abernathy, if you turn her away now, she will go to a juvenile detention facility."

Katniss clenched her jaw. _That_ , she hadn't known. With a glance around the old gym and its somewhat haggard owner, she almost wondered if there was a better situation between these choices. Go to _jail_ , or live in this dump without her sister.

Haymitch finally gave the kid a long look, who was making a fairly good effort at not looking scared, and making this effort by glaring in an almost insulting way at his gym. She was full of spit and vinegar alright, but when he looked past the obvious chip on her shoulder, he could see that she was skin and bones. The poor girl couldn't weigh more than ninety-five pounds soaking wet. He wasn't sure she'd last ten minutes in any kind of prison, even one made for kids. Not when she was scrawny and spoiling for a fight she couldn't handle.

"Well," he said, looking back at Cardew with a furrowed brow. "I don't want that to happen. But even so, what about your… rules," he said, waving his hand vaguely. "Single man and all."

"It's more of a guideline. And the fact you're so concerned speaks well about your character," Fulvia said, and he sneered at the idea. Good character was not something generally associated with Haymitch Abernathy.

"You know, _she_ is right here," Katniss said finally, gritting her teeth. She let her bag drop, plopping haphazardly onto the gym floor beside her as she folded her arms. "If you wanted to talk about me like I wasn't here, you should have told me to go somewhere else!"

Haymitch tried not to smirk, but when he saw Fulvia Cardew getting something of a twitch near her left eye, he couldn't help but let out a short laugh.

"Suppose we should have, sweetheart. Go upstairs, then," he said, nodding to a staircase at the far corner of the gym that was closed off by a locking door. He handed her the key ring. "The little round-headed key. Go. Help yourself to the fridge."

Katniss was a little surprised and quite a bit wary. "I _have_ a name," she said, then gave him a mistrustful look, took the key, snatched up her bag, and turned on her heel to go. She didn't like being dismissed from a conversation that concerned her own future, and she hated being ordered around.

She might have been more tempted to stick around and argue if he hadn't mentioned the fridge.

Katniss wasn't sure what else they started to talk about, as she was too far away by the time she heard their voices again to understand what they were saying. So she unlocked the door, headed up the stairs as indicated, and let herself into the apartment. The smell was musty and old, as if the windows hadn't been opened in years. Judging by the layer of dust on almost everything she could see, she wondered if Mr. Abernathy had even been in here in the last month.

It was about as faded as everything else had been downstairs, although she was surprised at how feminine some of the decor seemed. She'd expected nothing short of utilitarian. Instead, she saw coasters with flowers on them in the small living room, and the curtains even matched the couch. She didn't dwell on the look much further, instead making a beeline for the kitchen.

She was wrong about him having been up here, apparently, because there was bread on the counter and it wasn't molded at all. Maybe a little stale, but otherwise it was fine. She raided the fridge and cabinets, not finding any very _interesting_ food, but at least there was something actually in said fridge and cabinets. Much of her anger was put on hold as she opened a can of soup and emptied it in a dubiously clean bowl. While it was heating in the microwave, she ate slices of bread straight from the bag and watched the time count down.

She was usually so focused on keeping Prim fed - and _well_ fed, well enough not to be distracted in school - that she tended to go without, herself. What she could buy with the money scraped up from odd jobs around the neighborhood, and what puny little fish she could catch in the stream in the park near their house was usually enough to feed one person, and that person was Prim. Her mother got food stamps, but the food they got with it at the beginning of the month was usually gone fairly quickly, so the time in between firsts and the end of the food, Katniss tended to get most of her eating done at school lunch. Sometimes she would steal food from the diner she worked at, now that she'd been working there about a month. She barely made a dollar an hour in wages and it was all gone in taxes before she got her check, so her tips were about all she ever got, but they tended to be a bit light considering she wasn't the most personable waitress.

Having food so readily available in the evening was, frankly, like heaven. Even if it was simple and somewhat tasteless.

She'd slurped down the soup, ate three slices of bread spread thickly with butter, and was halfway through a tin of corn by the time the door opened and Mr. Abernathy stepped into the living room, directly across from the kitchen.

Haymitch hadn't actually spent that long talking to Cardew, only finding out that she had no idea how long Katniss would need to stay there. He to wrote down the address of Katniss' school and heard a little about how she'd gotten in trouble with the police, before the woman left him with her number and walked right out the door. Haymitch got the idea her evening had been quite interrupted by her pesky job, the one where she was supposed to care for the most vulnerable part of the population, and he found himself greatly annoyed with her. His own evening wasn't really going as planned, but he was at least trying to take the time to do things right.

By the time he walked into his apartment, he had the beginnings of a headache and a crick in his neck from where he'd been slumped over on his desk downstairs, dead asleep when they'd come knocking.

He eyed Katniss' strange little feast, but didn't comment, instead pulling the bag of bread from the counter to eat a slice, himself.

"Why do you have geese downstairs?" Katniss asked with her mouth full.

"They make pretty good friends. Not nosy," Haymitch said, and Katniss shrugged.

Haymitch found himself feeling quite awkward. He was not nearly drunk enough for this. The last time there'd been a foster kid in this apartment, Ford had been President and Keith Moon was still alive. Among other people.

Haymitch's girl would have known exactly what to say to this kid, would have known what to do to make her feel better. He was just hoping she didn't start crying or something. Then, he'd be really out of his depth.

For now, though, she seemed fine. And intent on eating everything in his cupboards. He could tell he was probably going to have to make a grocery trip sooner rather than later. He was a little fuzzy on the last time he'd eaten actual solid food, so he helped her eat whatever she'd got bored with, until she'd had her fill. It took longer than he would have expected.

"You sure can pack it away, for a scrawny kid," he snorted when she finally leaned back against the counter, seeming sated. He was surprised to see her look guilty.

"I shouldn't have," she started, picking up her bag.

"No. You eat whatever the hell you want. That's what it's there for, to get eaten," Haymitch insisted. Before she could start to argue, he turned and headed for the hallway. "Come on. Your room's this way."

She followed him into a room that, if possible, was more dusty with disuse than the entire rest of the house. She wrinkled her nose at the stale smell, set her bag on the end of the bed, and looked anywhere but at him.

"It's not much, but… Well. We tried to keep it real simple looking. For the kids to do up themselves," he explained. He walked over to the window and used his forearm to rub the dust away, dirtying his already questionable sleeve with a smear of gray. The view wasn't much.

"Anyway. I'll get you up for school in the morning."

He walked to the door, a seemingly abrupt exit, and left without another word.

"Well, goodnight to you too," Katniss muttered under her breath. She sat on the pale blue bedspread and pulled her bag onto her lap to tear it open just up under the knot in the plastic. She decided even as she pulled her pajamas out, that she wouldn't be unpacking anything inside it. After all, she wasn't expecting to be here too long. She'd get out of Mr. Abernathy's hair quickly one way or another.


	2. Running Scared

**Running Scared**

Haymitch was in his room before he'd really realized he'd sort of run away from the kid. He'd lamely excused himself and left, feeling completely overwhelmed with the situation and all of the thoughts it was forcing to the surface. The kid was one thing - he was sure she would be fine, he'd find some way to make the situation work. He doubted she'd be here terribly long, after all it was her first placement and he was sure a go-getter social worker like the impatient Miss Cardew would find something else quickly. However, he wasn't sure he'd be sane by the time that happened. That kid would eat his food, bother his clients, and probably make too much noise for a week or two, then be gone and forget him. Haymitch would spend the next _year_ or two trying to forget all over again everything he'd thought he'd forgotten already.

The throbbing behind his temples got harder and more painful, and he pressed his thumbs against them while his fingers rubbed his hairline. He'd been living a plainly unremarkable existence for more than a decade now, full of enough liquor to make him sleep each night and just enough money to keep the power bill at the gym paid up. He may only be just further than forty one, but he was secure in the knowledge that he'd live the rest of his life ordinarily, lonely, and most likely pass out of this world with a bottle in his hand and little fanfare. What he didn't need was some kid coming in and interrupting this solitude. Making him _think_. Thinking had never gotten him too far.

Haymitch looked at his bed for a long moment, snatched up one of the pillows, and left the room. Left the apartment entirely, in fact, as he headed back downstairs into the gym. He passed through the main training space, ducked into his office, and flung the pillow down on top of his desk. It crinkled some papers, probably some important ones, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

He settled heavily into the chair behind the desk, listening to the familiar creak as he then leaned over and pulled a half-full bottle of cheap whiskey from under the desk. Downing half of what was left would help him sleep, probably badly. Finishing it would knock him out and he wasn't sure when he'd be up in the morning.

He cursed colorfully and took burning swallows, stopping when his eyes watered and there was still a fourth of the bottle left. With hands that were a bit loose in grip but thankfully not shaky, he capped it, settled it back under his desk, and leaned forward onto the pillow. His head felt sloshy and his tongue was numb, and he was sweating with a sudden rush of fire up and down his back and arms from the alcohol. He grasped onto the familiarity of the feeling and drifted into a fitful sleep.

* * *

Katniss' eyes snapped open in the early hours of the morning, a thin and sombre light filtering in through a clean spot on a window at the far end of the room. She sat up, remembering slowly how she came to be in this musty old place, under blankets that were admittedly warmer and comfier than the ones she had on her bed at home, smell aside. She slid out of bed and went to the window, opened it wide, and left it that way as she slipped out of the room entirely.

Everything was so quiet, her ears seemed full with it. She padded up the frigid hallway, her arms wrapped around herself, and peeked in an open doorway. Bathroom. Further down, she was dumped into the kitchen, and around the corner was the living room. She wondered where Haymitch was, and where his room was for that matter. She headed to the doorway down the stairs to the gym, thinking maybe Miss Cardew was right: maybe Haymitch really did live in there. However, she noticed a door she hadn't seen the night before, on the other end of the living room next to the old TV set. It was ajar enough for her to see a bed and dresser, but Mr. Abernathy was conspicuously absent.

She started to wonder if she'd been left alone in the apartment. It certainly wouldn't be the first time she had been left alone at someone's home, but she hadn't really expected it in a foster place. Then again, Mr. Abernathy wasn't exactly the picture of a foster parent.

Feeling a little more relaxed now that she knew she was alone, Katniss took her time in his kitchen. She luxuriated in the unusual experience of having both dinner the night before and breakfast now. In the end, her hunger won out over her guilt about taking so much food, just as it had plenty of times before. She ate until she was full, really full, thinking it wouldn't be such a bad idea to put on as much weight as she could in the short amount of time she expected to be here.

Eventually, she wandered back to her room, put on her clothes and shoes, and re-plaited her hair into some semblance of normalcy. She'd forgotten a hairbrush, and she sure didn't want to go rifling through Mr. Abernathy's things to use his.

If he even owned one.

By around seven thirty, she was starting to wonder if he'd be back at all. She actually went down the stairs into the gym this go around, thinking it looked worse in the daylight. The place was more rundown than she had thought, although the ring, at least, seemed to be in alright shape. She walked through the open training space, toward the front door, and wrinkled her nose when she passed a locker room. She paused when she heard snoring coming from a dark doorway, stuck her head into the room, and groped around the entryway for a light switch. If possible, she thought this place smelled worse than the locker rooms behind her or the musty apartment upstairs. She figured out why as soon as the light was on: the place was somewhere between a dirty clothes hamper and a distillery. And maybe a trash service on the side.

Mr. Abernathy was slumped over his desk, clutching a miraculously clean pillow to his unshaven face. He was the source of the snoring she'd heard. There were empty bottles of various liquors littered all over the office, and some half empty ones in easy reach of the desk. There were even two unopened bottles of amber liquid clustered among what looked to be awards of some sort on a back shelf. She spared a wary glance at the sleeping man, his breath blowing a lock of his hair around his face with every exhale, and judged it safe enough to walk over and look.

Surprisingly, these boxing trophies all had _his_ name on them, not guys presumably trained in his gym. She didn't think he looked in good enough shape to be recently retired, but then, what did she know about boxing?

She reached up, wiping dust off the inscriptions, and her brow furrowed. Maybe she _did_ know a little something. 1965, 1966 - none of them were recent. And for what was probably the span of one or two working years, there were a _lot_ of awards. She went to pick up a small golden pair of boxing gloves, but her hand bumped against one of the bottles, sending the whiskey crashing to the floor. She jumped as it shattered, and Haymitch came awake violently. He yelled loud enough to scare Katniss practically out of her own skin, and she was halfway across the room in an instant when she saw him come up swinging from his sleeping place.

Maybe he was old and not in fighting shape anymore, but she didn't want those fists to connect with any part of her. She needn't have worried, though, as his attention was more on the mess just behind his desk chair than it was on her.

" _Jesus_ christ, what the-"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to knock it over," Katniss said, backing toward the doorway.

Haymitch looked up at the girl, his grey eyes narrowing, and gestured to the mess on the floor.

"That is a _waste_!" he all but growled. "What the hell were you doing in here, anyway?"

"What are _you_ doing in here? You said you'd wake me up for school," Katniss fired back, folding her arms and matching his glare.

Haymitch stared at her, not sure if he was annoyed or pleased when she didn't back down an inch. She met his eyes with just as much ire as he was giving her.

"No alarm clock down here," he said, finally looking away to check the hanging clock up on the wall near the door. "Jesus, it's not even eight. Why aren't _you_ in bed?"

Katniss couldn't help being up early when she was _always_ up early, to make sure Prim was awake and dressed and out the door on time, and her mom had something clean to wear on the few times a week she dared to venture from the house. But she wasn't about to let Haymitch know that.

"Couldn't sleep. Room smelt bad. Not as bad as _this_ room," she granted.

"You know, princess, why don't you get off that high horse of yours and make yourself useful? Go outside and change out the water in the goose pen. There's a hose in plain sight," Haymitch ordered, looking with irritation down at the wasted bottle of liquor. Now he had to clean it up and replace it, and having all that alcohol on the floor probably wasn't about to _help_ the stench in the room.

Katniss did feel kind of bad about wrecking his stuff, although she was glad it was just booze rather than one of those trophies. She turned to go do as he asked, thinking the geese might make better company, anyway.

When she was gone, Haymitch sighed to himself and went to fetch a broom and a mop. Maybe he'd underestimated just how annoying this little babysitting operation was going to be. He'd had difficult foster kids before, but then, he'd also had a wife around who was basically a saint and knew how to work with difficult sorts. She'd had to be, to be with him.

Haymitch tried to steer his thoughts away from her. It still hurt too damn much after all this time, so he just decided not to think about her, which was how he liked to handle most everything that ever hurt him. Instead, he went about the chores concerned in opening the gym for business for the day; the last minute wipe downs that he should have done the night before, putting out equipment, and shutting his office. The only thing he didn't do was actually open the place. Instead, he went outside through the front door, lit a cigarette, and walked around the alleyway. He wondered if Katniss had just left the office to get away from him, or if she'd actually done what he told her to.

He was fairly surprised to see her standing out by the geese, watching them stretch their wings and peck around for food. She didn't talk to them, like Haymitch himself usually did, but she seemed pretty intent upon overseeing them. And, he was pleased to note, the water in their basin looked fresh. He watched her watch them for a few minutes while his cigarette burned down.

She seemed mouthy the few times she had actually spoken to him, but he liked that she had some fire in her. It was better than having a broken kid delivered to his doorstep that he couldn't begin to know how to help heal, anyway. And maybe it would be nice to have somebody around to keep the place from feeling too quiet during closing hours. Well. It would be _interesting_ , if not nice. Somehow he couldn't apply that word to the girl who'd insulted him every other time she opened her mouth in the last ten hours.

He felt the swell of sentimentality fading away quickly enough when Katniss caught him watching her. She made a point of scowling at the smoke from his cigarette, and turned to fairly stomp up the stairs into the apartment. Maybe he was seeing through rose colored glasses about the kids they used to foster or maybe he was just remembering younger ones, because, _really_ , teenagers were pains in the ass. She slammed the door, and Haymitch turned to his geese.

"I think I prefer the honking," he told them.

* * *

Later that morning, Katniss almost couldn't believe she was at school at _all_.

"So you're not kidding. I don't even get one day off?" She'd asked Haymitch incredulously at one point.

"That's the funny thing about when awful stuff happens, sweetheart: life is still there, waiting for you, and you've still got to live it."

His response was less than helpful and not at all what she had wanted to hear. She got ripped away from her home and her sister and she had to go to school now and pretend things were perfectly fine, and try to focus on math and history? It seemed completely unfair.

She was late, of course. Haymitch had had the address of her school, sure. But between not knowing that neighborhood all too well and having a slow junker of a pickup, they hadn't made good time. Katniss barely waited for the truck to stop moving before she was out of her seat and dashing for the front doors of the school.

The only saving grace when she took the tardy slip from her homeroom teacher was knowing that few, if any, of her classmates had seen her in Mr. Abernathy's cruddy truck. As if she wasn't liable enough to embarrass herself already.

She sat through the last ten minutes of homeroom and bolted out the door as soon as the bell rang. She kept her head down, going right to her locker - and was glad to see a familiar and _friendly_ face when Gale was already there, leaning up against it.

"Didn't see you this morning," he said, standing straighter when she came over. "Prim oversleep again?"

"No. Things are a little more complicated," Katniss sighed, opening her locker. "But I plan to fix that soon enough."

"Cryptic," Gale said, only half teasing as she rifled through her books and papers. When she wouldn't look at him, he rested a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. Really. Is everything okay?"

"Not really," Katniss said, staring unseeingly into the back of her locker. She hoped it would give her some sort of answers, tell her what she needed to do to fix everything as quickly as possible. Sadly, nothing was forthcoming. "Nothing's _great_ but it won't last. I know it won't. I've been through worse."

Gale was starting to get truly worried. It was odd for Katniss to even admit in so many words that _anything_ was wrong. She just had too much pride and stubbornness, and she liked to fix every problem she and her whole family had, all on her own. She sure didn't like to _talk_ about it, either. His dark brows furrowed, and he nudged her around a bit until she turned to face him.

"At least meet me at lunch? Tell me what's going on?" he asked, his tone turning serious.

She shrugged with one shoulder. It wasn't much of an answer, but he was sure it was about as much of one as he was going to get from her.

The warning bell dinged and Katniss shrugged him off. "I need to go, if I don't want detention," she said, waving her bright pink tardy slip at him on her way down the hallway.

* * *

The phone in Haymitch's office rang, the shrill bell cutting through the open door and breaking up the muted sounds of boxers training. Haymitch would have greatly preferred for the rhythmic thudding of fists against bags, mitts, and people not to be disturbed.

But, for all he knew, it was something to do with the gym. So he pulled himself away from the aging heavyweight who had him wrapped up in an interesting if repetitive conversation about their past wins, schlepped into the office, and pulled the phone off the cradle.

"Fulvia Cardew," Haymitch heard Katniss' social worker saying before he'd even pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hello to you too," he said acerbically. "You lettin' me know to pack the kid up?"

He wouldn't be surprised if Katniss was going right back, or if she only had a few more days at his place. After all, she'd never been taken from her home before now. They were probably just correcting a single urgent situation and warning her mother. The threat of losing the children for good was one the system wasn't afraid to impose.

"Actually, I'm letting you know that Katniss' mother, Deirdre Everdeen, has been committed to a mental institution."

Haymitch was drawing a blank. Of all of the possibilities, that was one he hadn't really expected.

"Mr. Abernathy?" Cardew asked.

He blinked, and sunk down into his chair.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm still here. Christ, what is she locked up for?"

"I am not aware of the details of her case," Cardew said in an obvious tone. Of course, he should know about confidentiality. Obviously. And while he was at it, maybe he should just go eat worms.

"Well then, do you know how long she's gonna be _in_ there?" Haymitch asked impatiently.

There was a sigh on the other end of the line, a rare pause from miss Cardew.

"I don't know. I couldn't really say. It could be anywhere from six weeks to six months."

Haymitch leaned his elbows on his desk, his unoccupied hand pressing against his forehead while the other kept the phone to his ear.

"I will try to find Katniss a new placement. I will do so as quickly as I can. But I wasn't kidding about the overcrowding in this city. Frankly, at the rate this is going, we're going to see a lot of perfectly innocent children in juvenile detention soon."

Well, that was sad, but those kids weren't Haymitch's problem. Just one kid was.

"So, what. How long do you think it will take to place her? Two weeks?"

"A month. Minimum."

Haymitch swore colorfully, and he could hear Fulvia's annoyed sound on the line.

"Sorry. No. Fine," he all but growled, tugging a little on his hair in frustration. "No. Don't find her a new placement. It's fine."

As much as he hadn't really bargained for this, Haymitch thought it was a little too cruel to go bumping the kid around from place to place like that. A couple of weeks, that might have been fine, but a full month or longer? To give the kid time enough to settle down here and get a little more comfortable with him and then to yank her away from even that small familiarity was absolutely off the table.

Fulvia was silent for long enough that Haymitch almost wondered if she hadn't hung up on him now that she had no more work to do for him.

"Hello?" he grunted.

"Are you positive?" she said.

Haymitch didn't hesitate.

"Of course. Do I sound like the sort of guy who makes a habit of saying things he doesn't mean?" he scoffed.

"No, Mr. Abernathy, I suppose you do not," Cardew said. Haymitch imagined he could see her rolling her eyes. "I will be checking in on you. You have my number if you change your mind."

Then, Haymitch really did hear a click and knew he'd been hung up on.

* * *

Katniss had known on some level that she wouldn't see Prim when she was at school that day, seeing as she'd been taken someplace uptown. But there was a difference between knowing it, and _actually_ going the whole day without seeing her sister in the halls or being greeted with a big hug right as the bell rang.

That last letdown had really made it sink in for Katniss. Things were _bad_ , really bad. She couldn't just let the situation continue to spiral out of control without trying to get everything back to normal. She had to find Prim, and after that… Well, after that she didn't really know. She didn't have any other plan. But she had to connect with her sister.

Rather than waiting for Mr. Abernathy after school like she'd been told, Katniss said goodbye to Gale and headed in the direction of the diner. So far she had been able to guide the conversation away from the night before or that morning, only mentioning that things with her mom weren't good right now. That was the understatement of the century, of course, but she didn't want to tell Gale about being taken from her mother and Prim before she had a plan - he was good with action, but tended to go a little off the rails when faced with injustice or bad news. She didn't blame him, but it wasn't the most productive way to handle things.

When she was out of sight of the school, Katniss turned toward the library nearby.

Once inside, she found the references and records. She didn't know where else she might be able to find a city map. Panem didn't exactly see a lot of tourism outside the Capitol district.

There was a small book of maps in a quiet corner of the references, one specifically for California, and Katniss flipped through until she found Panem City. The map folded out of the book and she was able to find her current location, and trace a few streets to the school and to her apartment. Further to the north, the entire capitol district was displayed with street names. This was exactly what she needed, and she wasn't going to let lack of a library card get in her way.

She looked around to see if anybody was watching, carefully ripped the page out of the book, and folded it back up. She tucked it into her inner jacket pocket and slid the maps back onto their shelf, then made a hasty exit from the library entirely, in the direction of the nearby park.

When she got there, she walked right past the rusting playground equipment and toward a wooded area that was even more overgrown than the rest of the park. A lot of Seam neighborhood parents wouldn't let their kids come in here, since little ones were likely to get ticks in the wild grass, and older ones were likely to get drunk with their friends. Katniss was pretty glad more kids _didn't_ end up in here, as it left the muddy creek for her and Gale's almost exclusive use. She was sure other people knew that you could find fish and crawdads here, but for most, they weren't worth the effort.

Best of all, it was very quiet and very private. She dropped her school bag at the base of a tree and settled into the grass herself. The autumn air was a bit chilly, but smelled so good she didn't really mind that too much.

She retrieved her library prize, spread it out over her lap, and thought about the drive in Fulvia Cardew's car the other night as hard as she could. She'd been pretty focused on Prim, but maybe she could remember more of the drive than she thought. She found the street with her apartment on it and tried as best she could to trace the roads with her finger, going in the general direction of where she thought Prim had ended up. After careful consideration, there were two neighborhoods she thought Prim might be in, both in the Capitol District. It wasn't too specific, but it was more information than she had had an hour ago.

Maybe if she could figure out where the sixth graders went to school in each of those districts, she could try to find Prim there. It would be easier to check a handful of classrooms than it would be to go through a whole high-rise building, anyway.

She felt better now, having a plan. It made the whole situation seem a little less hopeless. She folded the map back up and slid it in between a few of the books in her school bag.

She had to find her way out of the wooded area mostly by memory, since the treetops blocked out the fading light of the sunset. It was much easier to see when she was back in the open area of the park. She hit the sidewalk and started back toward school, hoping she'd get lucky and Mr. Abernathy would have gone back to the gym to wait for her to walk home. She rather expected she wouldn't be, and that he'd still be there waiting for her, but it was a nice thought.

Her luck was, in fact, even worse than she had expected it to be, as she saw two police cars with Mr. Abernathy's truck at the school. Even from a few streets back, she could see him talking animatedly with an officer. She thought Principal Coin might have been in the small huddle too, but at this distance she couldn't tell if the gray head of hair was familiar or not.

"Katniss!" she heard from somewhere above her, after she'd stopped to consider whether going to the school was a good idea after all.

It was Madge Undersee, the daughter of a couple of the teachers that worked in the school. She was hanging off the fire escape outside what Katniss could only assume was her bedroom window.

"What _happened_? Some guy came into the school. I heard him yelling about you while I was helping my mom grade the little kids' projects," she explained. Katniss felt her face heating up.

"Please, don't say anything," Katniss said, taking another look at the scene in front of the school and making what was probably another bad decision. "Will you kick the ladder down to me?"

Madge looked slightly undecided, but eventually climbed down far enough to help Katniss up the fire escape. She was only two floors up, but Katniss was glad for any distance she could put between herself and the scene at the school. She'd had enough of cops for a lifetime.

"If you're going to hide out here, you at least should tell me what happened," Madge said, climbing in the window of her bedroom. Katniss followed after her, taking in the tidy, homey space. It was nicer than a lot of Seam kids had, although she supposed the area directly next to the school wasn't so much Seam as the rest of the neighborhood. Both of Madge's parents had tenure teaching there by now, so she thought they must live a little more comfortably than most.

"I… I don't even know where to start," Katniss said, settling awkwardly on the window seat. There was a great view of the street from here and several books nearby. Katniss guessed Madge had probably just been sitting here with her homework when she happened by.

"Who was that guy?" Madge prompted, sitting on the bed.

"Um… My foster dad, I guess," Katniss said, even a semi-parental title feeling strange in her mouth.

Madge looked a bit dumbstruck. She recovered quickly enough to start asking questions again, and pulled the tale from Katniss answer by answer until she thought she'd gotten the whole story. By now it was truly dark outside, the streetlights having come on halfway through their conversation. Katniss was pretty sure she'd heard her name being called a few times. She didn't dare to answer.

"That's _awful_ , Katniss, I'm so sorry," Madge offered quietly. "What are you going to do?"

Katniss shrugged. She had one plan, but she wasn't about to tell it to a teacher's kid. She had less of an idea what to do in the immediate, though.

"Can I just… stay here for a little while? An hour or two, while I figure that out," she said bitterly.

"Well, you'll have to be quiet," Madge said somewhat worriedly. "It's my parents, you know, I'm an only kid. There's a lot of attention on me."

A door opened somewhere else inside the apartment, and Madge said apologetically, "My dad's home, I'm gonna go say hello. You can stay, but I can't promise you won't get caught."

Katniss nodded, and Madge left the room. She was left alone in yet another unfamiliar place.

She looked out the window once more, saw the police starting to knock on doors down the road, and felt her heart start to thud away in her chest. She was suddenly very aware that there was a bed in juvie with her name written on it. She shouldn't have come up to hide in Madge's room, she should have just gone to the school when she saw Mr. Abernathy there. She could never find Prim if she was locked up. She couldn't even get a message to her if she found out where she was.

She sat in the dark in Madge Undersee's bedroom, trying to decide whether to run away entirely or to make up some story. She could try for a dramatic play, begging the police to let her stay with Mr. Abernathy. That was probably a bad idea. She had always been an awful liar and a worse actress.

She was saved the decision when she heard voices down the hall. Madge was obviously trying to get her dad to stay _away_ , but it wasn't working. Katniss stood, shifting on her feet as she tried to decide where, exactly, to go. She didn't think she'd fit under the bed, but the closet was on the other side of the room. In the end, the door opened and the light turned on before she could do anything at all.

"Madge, I don't understand what's wrong with you. I just want to put these books on your desk so they're not cluttering up the living room," he said, looking over his shoulder at Madge who was behind him in the hallway. She looked almost as ashen and nervous as Katniss was sure she herself looked.

Katniss had one leg out the window and a tenuous grasp on her school bag by the time Mr. Undersee turned around and saw her.

"What in the world is going on here?" he demanded, in a voice Katniss knew fairly well from her history classes. He was decidedly unhappy, and _she_ was in a good deal of trouble. She wondered if teachers could give detention outside of school. Sadly, she was not quick enough to avoid being snagged about the arm by Mr. Undersee, who pulled her back in through the window and deposited her on the bed behind them. Recognition dawned on his features as soon as Katniss looked up at him.

"Please, Mr. Undersee, I can explain -"

"They've been looking all over for you!" he cut her off, looking red faced and cross. "Why, we all thought you'd been kidnapped. This is unacceptable, miss Everdeen, and not the kind of shenanigans I would have expected from a girl like you." He gave Madge a sharp frown, one that Katniss would remember and feel badly about after the fact. She hadn't wanted to get anybody _else_ in trouble. "Or you, for that matter, young lady."

There was little else to say, as Katniss was escorted into the front room. While the Undersees kept an eye on her, Madge was sent downstairs to call for an officer. There were enough of them on the block, after all.

And that was Katniss' fault.

Surprisingly, the officer that collected her and spoke shortly to Mr. Undersee did not seem to be upset with her. He didn't even seem annoyed. He simply walked her to the school, and called off what had apparently been a pretty large search through his radio.

That one particular officer might not have been mad, but Principal Coin and Mr. Abernathy certainly were. When they came closer, Katniss could even see Fulvia Cardew had joined the party. Though she only looked as peeved to have to attend to Katniss as she had last night, she was the person Katniss was most afraid of. _She_ was the person who could put her away in Juvie.

Katniss stayed silent as the officers slowly dissipated. Apparently with no actual missing person to account for, it ceased to be their problem and was placed solely in the hands of the state and her foster family. Miss Cardew was as blunt as ever when she let her principal know that, since the disappearance happened after school hours, it was none of their business and the resolution of this matter would be conducted elsewhere. Katniss almost, _almost_ cracked half a smile at the look of pure indignation on Coin's face.

That disappeared quickly enough when it was made apparent to her that she would be getting in Miss Cardew's car, rather than Mr. Abernathy's old clunker. She wondered if she'd even be allowed to keep her school bag in juvie. If she was going directly there, she sure wouldn't have time to get her stuff from the apartment over the gym.

Miss Cardew surprised her, however, by following Haymitch's truck. She was even more shocked by her words, however.

"Did you run off because Mr. Abernathy was cruel or inappropriate with you?" Fulvia asked.

Katniss spluttered in shock for a second.

"What? Of course not! He was fine!"

She wondered what in the world had given her _that_ idea.

"Are you dealing in drugs, or gang activity? Something illicit that could get you into trouble if it isn't dealt with?"

Katniss blanched. Who did this lady think she was?

"No!"

"Alright, so you were rebelling against the goodwill of a man who obviously wasn't expecting you, but took you in anyway. Not to mention, ignoring the work I did to find you a placement at all. But other than that, there's nothing else going on."

Her bland tone didn't necessarily seem offended to Katniss, but the simple statement of fact made her ears burn with embarrassment. She would rather have been shouted at.

"I guess."

"Then let this be a warning, Miss Everdeen," Cardew said, her tone clipped. "If you behave in a way that once again involves the police or requires me to come to wherever you are to do damage control, you will lose your home placement and go straight to a detention center. Maybe ten years ago I could have focused on your problems, but right now I have too much work to do to devote any of my time to silliness. Am I very clear?"

Katniss worked her jaw for a moment, biting down the litany of sarcastic comments that wanted to slip from her mouth.

"Yes," she eventually bit out. "We're clear."

They pulled up to the curb in front of the gym, just after Haymitch had turned his truck in at the alley, and Katniss grabbed her things. She opened her own door before Miss Cardew could, and darted out.

Mr. Abernathy came around the corner with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a stormy look on his face. Now that Katniss knew Juvie wasn't an option and the school really had nothing they could do about her disappearing act, she guessed this was the appropriate time to worry about the reaction she might get from _him_.

He didn't say anything to either of them, simply went to unlock the front door. When Katniss made no move to follow him inside, he looked over his shoulder.

"Well?" he prompted, his voice gruff. "Are you coming in, or are you gonna have a little slumber party with miss Cardew?"

Katniss scowled and squared her shoulders, making a show of confidence she didn't exactly feel at that moment as she brushed past him into the gym.

He said a few short words in parting to Miss Cardew that she didn't pay attention to, and locked the gym door behind him. Katniss felt what little bravado she possessed slipping away when she turned to look at him.

Frankly, he looked terrible. While he may have been a little tired that morning when he drove her to school, he now looked exhausted. He was haggard and more unkempt than usual; his hair looked a mess. He ran a hand through it even as she watched, and she figured he'd been doing a lot of that.

Their walk upstairs was silent and tense, and Katniss was very ready to escape to the bedroom with her things, so she could sleep and forget this entire day. She went to do exactly that when they were in the apartment, but a heavy hand on her shoulder stopped her progress toward the hallway.

"I don't think so," Haymitch snorted, and nudged her toward the kitchen. She was almost as relieved to hear him speaking to her as she was annoyed with his demeanor.

"Sit. You and I are gonna talk. Because this," he gestured vaguely to her, "cannot happen again."

"Can't we talk tomorrow?" Katniss groaned, slumping down onto a kitchen chair and dropping her bag on the tabletop. "I want to go to bed. And _you_ should go to bed. You don't look great."

"You know, fear will do that to a man," Haymitch said acerbically. He stood, watching her for a minute, while she refused to look anywhere near him.

Fear? Katniss suddenly felt exponentially more guilty. She had expected him to be angry with her for wasting his time… Not afraid for her safety.

Eventually, he sat across from her, leaning his elbows heavily on the table.

"Let's start at the beginning, then. Where _were_ you?" he asked.

Katniss shrugged with one shoulder. She may feel bad about worrying him, but Mr. Abernathy's feelings were less important to her than finding her sister.

"Around the neighborhood."

"Doesn't cut it," he fired back immediately. "I can be here all night, girl. You're gonna tell me where you were and what you were doing, or you're gonna sit here at this table until the sun comes up."

That she didn't want to tell him only made Haymitch a lot more nervous. He'd had kids come in from rough neighborhoods before, and the Seam was definitely one of those. If she was in trouble, with drugs or money or anything else, he didn't want her trying to handle it on her own.

"I was _sleeping_ ," she lied shortly, her eyes darting up at him only to give him a quick scowl.

"Sleeping where?" he asked, a dubious expression on his face.

"In the park, alright? Now will you leave me alone? I wasn't doing anything bad. I just fell asleep," Katniss said, slumping back and crossing her arms.

There was a long pause, and Haymitch rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand.

"Fine. You were at the park. _Sleeping_ in the park. _Why_ would you go sleep in a park?"

Haymitch wasn't sure he believed her. What kid goes to a park after school to sleep?

"I didn't mean to fall asleep. I just sat down, it was quiet… I dunno."

Haymitch ran a hand through his hair, several times, trying to keep his temper in check.

"So how did you get into that teacher's apartment?" he asked, recalling the conversation with the officer who had brought Katniss back to the school. He'd found her only a few streets down.

Katniss had the grace to look shamefaced. "I saw cops at the school when I was walking back. I… hid from them."

The sound of frustration that came from him then made her jump in her seat. It was something close to a growl.

"You _knew_ we had cops out trying to find you and you _still_ hid from us?" he demanded, his voice raising a little in disbelief.

"It was _stupid_ , okay, I'm sorry!" Katniss said, her own voice escalating. "I panicked! I didn't want to talk to any cops!"

Maybe she lied about her first errand and what she'd really been doing at the park, but _this_ was the absolute truth. Those cops had scared her.

"Were you doing something illegal?" Haymitch asked, reining his own temper in to try and keep her from going off the rails in reaction. "Were you turning tricks in that park? Because if you were, you don't need to do that anymore. You're here to be safe-"

"God, no!" Katniss groaned, covering her mortified face. "I wasn't with _anyone_ , I don't do that stuff. Oh my god."

Haymitch leaned back heavily in his chair and was silent for a moment, his brain working. He guessed he could well understand why the Panem City Police were not her favorite group at the moment, why she might be scared to see them. But he'd been scared too, when she didn't show up after school and didn't even walk out with the stragglers an hour later after detention let out. She already came from a bad situation, he didn't know if she had people at home or school who might be angry or need to protect their own secrets if she was suddenly living in somebody else's home and liable to blab.

"Listen to me, kid, and listen good," he said, sitting up straighter. "And look at me, alright?"

He waited until she complied, sullen but meeting his eyes.

"This _will_ _not_ happen again. I can't have you spiralling me closer toward heart failure every day. You're going to come to the front of the school _every_ day, _right_ after you get out, immediately, so I can pick you up. No more disappearances. You got that?"

He'd hoped that would be the end of the matter, but he was wrong. She narrowed her eyes.

"What if I want to hang out with my friends?" _All one of them,_ she thought to herself. But it was a matter of principle.

"Consider yourself grounded for now," Haymitch drawled. "When I can trust you a little more, then you'll _ask_ before you go running off. I need to know where you are. This is really basic stuff here, princess."

Katniss' mouth dropped open for a second, before she snapped it shut. He couldn't _ground_ her, her own mother never grounded her! With a new fire in her belly, she sat up straight and was ready to argue, but Haymitch held up a hand.

"I don't want to hear it. It's late, I'm tired, and you need to get up for school in the morning. Go to bed, kid."

"But you-"

" _Go_ to _bed_ , Katniss," Haymitch interrupted her.

She huffed and shoved herself back in her chair, snatched up her bag, and stalked off down the hallway in a flurry of annoyance.

Haymitch had a pounding headache. He'd signed himself up for a couple of months of this, at least. He hoped her stay wouldn't be quite so turbulent from here on out.


	3. Like Bookends

The next morning found Katniss slumped sullenly in her seat on the ride to school. Mr. Abernathy was on the driver's side, billowing smoke out the fully open window, and the heater in the truck was blowing full blast to make up for it.

Katniss had tried to hold onto her anger at him. It would be a lot easier to go through her day if she could just ignore him, easier to put her plans into action if she could just not care what he thought. After their argument in the kitchen the night before, she'd thought that would be easy enough. But, about an hour after he'd sent her to bed, he'd knocked softly at her bedroom door, and entered with a plate full of food when she hadn't answered him.

She had glared at him from her spot on the bed, not wanting to see or talk to him in the slightest. But he'd set the plate down on the little bedside table next to the lamp.

"Thought you were asleep. But... I didn't want you to wake up hungry," he explained shortly, and left the room quickly thereafter. Katniss had had to take a moment to process, to stare at the food, before she could actually sit up and reach for it.

Of course, she had realized quickly after being sent to her room that Mr. Abernathy had basically sent her to bed without supper. The implication rankled her, but she otherwise didn't think much of it. She'd eaten like a king earlier in the day, and she was very used to going to bed hungry. Knowing that he hadn't intended __that__ particular injustice made her feel... well. She wasn't sure. She was less angry at him, anyway. She told herself while she ate that a momentary ceasefire would __not__ interfere with her objective or make her in any way warm up to him. Not because he was necessarily a bad guy, but because she needed to focus on Prim, and on getting home, and she couldn't do that if she was allowing herself to be bought off with food.

After falling asleep full and content, though, and then waking up to the crumbs of last night's dinner in her immediate field of vision... she was finding it a little difficult.

She still wasn't speaking to him. No, she wasn't going to give in __that__ much, he didn't need to know that his little stunt had softened her. She was still angry about being grounded, of course. She had decided that she really didn't like Mr. Abernathy thinking he could boss her around or, god forbid, __punish__ her. As far as Katniss was concerned, she hadn't been a kid for a couple of years now, not after taking care of her mother and sister for so long, since her father had died. Any adult who was unwilling to treat her as an equal was an immediate annoyance... And Mr. Abernathy seemed __determined__ to take care of her, as if she couldn't do it herself.

As he pulled up to the curb at the front of the school, Katniss reminded herself of his very irritating qualities, and didn't say a single word as she opened her door.

"Wait," he grunted, reaching over her and pulling the door closed again. "What are you gonna do this afternoon, girl? When school gets out?"

She rolled her eyes and tried to push the door open anyway.

"I'll come to the front! I'm not an idiot. Let me out."

"Best watch that attitude," he said, eyes narrowed as he released his grip on the door.

Katniss darted out, hearing him order her, "do __not__ make me come looking for you today!" as the truck pulled away. She felt her face heating, and she ducked her head as she stalked toward the front doors. There were far too many students milling around on the grass outside who had heard that, and she was intent on finding herself a quiet corner to be mortified in for the remainder of the time before school started.

Of course, because she was Katniss Everdeen, and it was a Thursday, and perhaps Mercury was in retrograde, she wasn't quite so lucky.

Gale fell into step beside her, his heavy boots surprisingly quiet, and he leaned down to talk to her.

"What the hell, Katniss?" he all but demanded. "What is going __on__?"

She groaned and clutched her bag tighter. "Don't even ask. I don't want to talk about it."

Unlike yesterday's refusal to talk, this was less strategic hiding of information from her hotheaded friend, and more embarrassment on her part. The less she could think about the scene she'd no doubt caused here yesterday, the better. She had already given the gossip train material not five minutes ago by being dropped off in a mysterious truck and getting yelled at.

"I'm sure you don't, because you never want to talk about anything serious," he said, his tone accusatory. "And maybe I'd be okay with that, because that's how you always are... if we didn't have police crawling all over the Seam last night. I went to your apartment."

She clenched her teeth, refusing to look at him. She picked up her pace down the hallway toward the indoor gym, trying to lose him. His longer legs allowed him not only to keep up with her, but pass her and stand in front of her, blocking her way. She stopped short before she ran into the solid wall of his chest.

"Prim wasn't there, you weren't there... Your __mom__ wasn't there. Katniss, your mother is all but rooted to the floorboards of that place! Something is wrong, why won't telling me what's happening?" he demanded. She could tell he was trying to keep his voice down, but he was angry, and taller than almost anyone else in the school, and people were noticing him. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the nearest unoccupied room, slamming the door behind them as she let him go.

"Because I knew you'd freak out!" she snapped, pacing further into the band room. "And what do you mean, my mom wasn't there?" Gale was right, of course. Her mother rarely left their apartment anymore, she hadn't worked in years. She had been positive that with her and Prim in the system, her mom would melt into her bed and try to forget they existed. It made Katniss __furious__ when her mother disappeared into her own head like that, even if she knew she couldn't really help it. It was difficult not to be upset when the only parent you had left did their best impression of the parent who was dead.

Gale stared at her. "How would you not know your mom isn't there? It didn't look like anyone had been there for a while. Everything was dark."

"Because I'm not living there right now," Katniss bit out. "I got caught stealing from the diner the other day, okay? I was hungry and I wasn't getting enough tips to feed us. My rat of a manager saw me and called the cops."

Gale looked torn between sitting down in shock or yelling at her. She was glad when he found a chair to slump into. She'd had enough of being yelled at for one week.

"They didn't bring me right to the station... it being my first offense and all," Katniss said, wandering over and sitting next to him. "They brought me home, like, to make sure my parents yelled at me. But Mom, of course, didn't seem to care much. When does she ever? And apparently being half comatose when cops show up at the door with your kid is kind of weird, because next thing I knew they were asking to take a look around. They were scaring Prim," she said, heat and fury rising in her throat. She swallowed it down when Gale rested a hand on her shoulder. "Anyway, it didn't take long for them to realize that Mom was definitely not the person running the house. There was no food there. None at all."

"Katniss," he said, shaking his head. He knew how that was. He was in a pretty similar position to Katniss, although his mom __did__ take care of them. It was just more than she could handle with three little kids as well as a teenage boy to feed.

"Yeah. I was taking that money for a __reason__. But... I dunno. I guess they called Miss Cardew then, I was kind of busy talking to Prim to keep her calm."

"Miss Cardew?" he asked.

"Our social worker," she said bitterly. "Pleasant woman, really. Very uptown," she said, with a put-on sniff of aristocratic disdain. "And apparently very __busy__. She stuck me with Mr. Abernathy and I don't actually know exactly where Prim is. In the Capitol district somewhere."

She felt Gale's hand tense on her shoulder, and didn't have to wait long at all for the explosion she knew was coming.

" _ _What?__ " he demanded furiously, and was up from his chair in an instant. "They split you up? They can't do that! Prim needs you!"

He started pacing, agitated almost out of his skin. "Someone finally notices enough to care about how bad your living situation is, and what do they do? Decide to ruin what little stability you two have with each other? That's __bullshit,__ complete... I __hate__ this city sometimes," he said, turning to face her again.

"You always hate this city," she grunted.

"And you don't?" he asked, one dark eyebrow raised.

She threw her hands up. "Of course I do. I hate living here and I hate that the system is so against my family that we can barely eat! But yelling about it doesn't solve anything."

"And I guess __you__ have a plan?"

"Sarcasm __not__ appreciated," she made sure to tell him, scowling. "Yes, actually, I __do__ have a plan. Maybe not for the whole city, but for me and Prim."

Gale sat down again, still out of sorts but calmer than he had been before.

"Well... Let's hear it, then."

Katniss rummaged in her bag, producing the map she'd taken from the library before the rest of the day had blown up yesterday. She pointed to the two circles she'd drawn around neighborhoods on the map.

"I think one of those places is where we ended up the other night when we dropped Prim off. I want to find the schools there and check out the sixth grade classes."

Gale pursed his lips as he looked over the map, tracing the north side neighborhoods down to their own lowly district.

"Those are on opposite sides of the West River."

"Yeah. I know we crossed one bridge, but I don't remember if we crossed two," she explained.

Panem City had sprung up around a delta where two rivers joined, and most maps could be simplified into a Y shape because of it. The Capitol District straddled the upper end of the west river, while District Twelve was on the far south-eastern side of the city. Katniss couldn't rule out one side of the West River or the other, although she was certain they'd crossed the East River. She thought she could recognize where she was if she could go back, however.

"That could take two hours on the bus," Gale pointed out.

"Or, I could get my eighteen year old best friend to drive me," Katniss said, feeling nervous for the first time that morning.

Gale frowned. He did have a license, because he drove pizza delivery on the weekends when he could be up late. But there was one problem.

"You know I don't have my own car, Catnip."

"Mr. Abernathy has a car, though."

He shared a look with her.

"If __you__ stole his car, it would be joyriding. You'd get yelled at. If __I__ stole his car, I could get arrested."

It wasn't an outright __no__ , and Katniss latched onto that.

"No, Gale, he's not like that. He's… well, he's not a softy. But he has a soft spot for kids. Why else would he be a foster parent?"

"Money?" Gale said obviously.

Katniss shrugged. "I dunno. He doesn't live like a king but I really don't think that's why."

She didn't find it necessary to mention that he hadn't had a placement in probably more than a decade, and __couldn't__ be milking the system for stipends.

"Just… think about it, Gale. Please. I'm going to find her one way or another, but it would be a lot easier with your help. With a friend along."

It was more earnestness than Katniss almost ever displayed, and Gale knew before she even stopped speaking that he'd been suckered.

"I'll think about it," he grumbled, already knowing his answer would be yes.

Katniss hugged him in thanks, and Gale was more than happy to hold her tightly. He figured she could use the comfort, even if she would never say so.

* * *

"She's sixteen and she's a pain in the neck," Haymitch scoffed, searching shortly for his flask in his jacket pocket and knocking back a few harsh swallows of the liquor. He would say the girl was driving him to drink, but it didn't take him much to get on that particular train. "You know she disappeared on me yesterday? I went to pick her up and she was just gone. Poof. Vanished. I had half the school staff looking for her, and we eventually had to call the police. Cops! When was the last time I had to call a cop?"

"And they just dumped her on you," Chaff asked with a raised eyebrow. He and Haymitch were two of the only three people currently in the gym, chatting while they watched Chaff's young heavyweight training on the heavy bag. The kid he was mentoring, Thresh, was fairly content to warm up and not talk to anybody.

Haymitch shrugged. "Sort of. Apparently we're overcrowded on foster kids, it was go with me or go to juvie. Whole thing is… dubiously legal. I'm fairly sure my license is several years out of date."

"A decade, maybe?" Chaff scoffed.

"Something like," Haymitch agreed darkly. "Gonna have to fix that."

He took another long drink before capping the flask and tucking it back away. The mild dullness around the corners of his being was welcomed.

Katniss. Now, she was an enigma if he ever saw one. Obviously neglected to the point of hunger, and yet she only seemed to have a half-formed sense of self-preservation. He expected a kid to be devastated that their family had hit rock bottom hard enough for them to be taken from their parents, at least when they were around Katniss' age. He did not expect kids to seem merely annoyed that their lives had been interrupted. He and the girl were in agreement on that one.

Honestly, she seemed to be more upset when he was __nice__ to her. He couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Rather than dwell on it, Haymitch grumbled, "imagine there being so damn many kids with unfit families that the system is crowded to the gills. What the hell kind of city is this? Most of these people just can't feed their damn kids. You know why they can't feed their damn kids? Because the system keeps most folks so destitute…"

Chaff listened patiently while Haymitch continued to rant. On the one hand, it was all commentary he'd heard before, all the same upsets and injustices that used to infuriate his closest friend and send him on the same kinds of raving spells when they had met overseas. Haymitch, like himself, had been an unwilling participant in an unpopular war.

But over the last several years, since tragedies had pummeled Haymitch like he was an outclassed amateur in a professional ring, Haymitch had been quieter in his disdain. He was more inclined to turn that anger at the world inward, since turning it out hadn't gotten him very far. He had to admit, even if the situation wasn't great, it was nice to see some fire back in him.

"Why's she in care, anyway?" Chaff asked, redirecting the conversation a bit.

Haymitch got a little quieter, and shrugged.

"I don't know much. Her mom ain't too right in the head. The way the kid eats, I'd say mom wasn't feeding her. Her caseworker gave me a ring yesterday to tell me she was in some mental institution."

Chaff whistled lowly. "Sounds like a mess. You don't know anything else?"

Haymitch groaned and pressed his palm to his forehead. "I'm surprised I even know __this__ much. The most infuriating part of this godforsaken system is that nobody __tells__ you anything. Hell, I'm assuming that this is Katniss' first placement and I don't actually know that. But… This hospital thing, it has me worried. I thought they'd find some way to get her mother some aid, some food in the cupboards, and she would be gone in a couple of weeks. Now, with all yesterday's drama, I haven't even had the opportunity to tell the kid she's gonna be here a while."

"How long is __a while__?" Chaff asked.

"Her mom could be AWOL up to six months. In the meantime, I'm positive they're gonna lose whatever apartment they're living in. She's gonna be released with nowhere to go, and who knows what happens then. Maybe another month for her to get on her feet alone before they check the place out to see if Katniss would actually be able to live there."

Haymitch had been chewing over all this for the last twenty-four hours, realizing the scope of the responsibility he'd taken on and the magnitude of the overhaul on Katniss' life.

"Wow."

Chaff was unsure how Haymitch would handle having a dependent, especially for such a long time. He could pull it together for a couple of weeks to take care of a short placement, he was sure enough of that. But he'd spent a lot of years in a basically solitary routine, and a lot of years self destructing.

Not that Chaff was a stranger to that. There was something to be said for the closest person in his life being an old combat buddy.

"Is she gonna stay with you the whole time?"

Haymitch nodded. "That's what I'm hoping for. No reason to bump her around to a bunch of different places in such a short amount of time. She's sixteen, she should be focusing on school, not worrying about the other little inmates stealing her stuff, or moving house every couple of months because nobody wants to take teenagers in."

Chaff nodded, and looked away to hide a smile. Maybe he was worrying too much. Hell, maybe this would be good for Haymitch. He'd always done better with other people around to bring him out of his head.

"Well, if you two ever need anything, you know you can give me a call."

"Yeah, yeah," Haymitch grumbled, showing his appreciation of the sentiment by wandering away from the conversation altogether. "Give that kid a break before he wrecks my heavy bag."

Chaff laughed, clapped Haymitch's shoulder as he retreated, and headed for Thresh to start the day's training.


	4. Keep the Customer Satisfied

A/N: Note that Katniss expresses some uh... less than flattering thoughts about certain institutions in this chapter. I don't share those views. At all.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Katniss' sandwich sat forgotten on the counter. She'd laid it there after Haymitch dropped the biggest bombshell of this whole week on her. She stared at him, silent almost long enough to concern him, though she did manage to speak before he resorted to waving his hand in front of her face to check if she was still present.

"A mental hospital?" She finally said, her voice choked and urgent. "You've got to be wrong. Somebody made a mistake. My mother can't be in a crazy house, she's not crazy."

"I'm sorry, Katniss. I wish I could tell you more, but I just don't know anything else," Haymitch said. He forced his tone to stay uncharacteristically soft, still feeling the need to comfort her. In truth, he felt anything but _soft_ right now. He always felt rigid with anger any time the system's lack of reasonable information harmed any of his kids, real time, right in front of him.

However, Katniss was far beyond gentle speech or kindness. Haymitch barely existed to her in that moment, as she stared blankly through him and wondered how it was her whole life could fall apart so quickly, so thoroughly. She wondered if her mom had gone willingly or been committed. She questioned how it could be possible that the vague and sad ghost of a woman she knew as her mother could be locked up with raving lunatics, violently confused people, and those screaming and wailing parodies she'd seen in horror films. She just didn't fit the bill. She didn't belong there.

"How long will she be there?" Katniss demanded, finally looking Haymitch in the eye.

He sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair. His hesitation told Katniss even before he spoke that this was it; this was where it all went to hell.

"Your caseworker's guess was anywhere from two to six months."

Katniss had to lean back against the counter in the absence of a chair to drop into. She was absolutely speechless. And now, she was more determined than ever to find her sister. What if Prim was placed elsewhere, if her own foster home was just as unwilling to take new kids as Haymitch had been to have _her_? Right now Katniss at least had a lead, she had a hazy idea of where Prim was in the city. But if one or both of them were moved, then she might never find her. Katniss was seeing visions of being lost in a shifting system and never seeing her sister or even her mother again. Six months was not necessarily a long time, but if this complication had happened, then what _else_ could keep their family apart?

Haymitch could see her starting to shut down, so he stepped in front of her and rested his hands on her shoulders. It was more personal than he'd gotten with her yet, but he got the idea that they were going to have plenty of time in which to become closer.

"Stop," he said simply. "Just stop thinking about how terrible this all is for a second and listen to me. You're gonna be fine. You're going to stay here the whole time, you can still go to your own school and see your friends. And you're gonna see your mom again. You just have to give her time to get better."

Katniss shook her head. It felt like the action broke away the cobwebs inside her mind.

"What do you mean, I'm staying here?" she asked, confused. "You don't even want me here. You told Miss Cardew to take me somewhere else as soon as we showed up here."

She didn't _want_ him to get rid of her, from a practical standpoint. But she was expecting it to happen, nonetheless.

"Well, you're only half wrong. I can't say I was _expecting_ you, but I don't want you to get shipped off. I already asked Fulvia not to find you another placement."

Katniss felt a surge of anger and shrugged his hands off. Every bit of control she'd had over her life had been stripped from her in the last week, and he didn't even have the decency to ask if she _wanted_ to be stuck here with him? She almost started yelling at him for it - but one thing was stopping her.

He was correct that she at least still had her normal school to go to and could see her friends. She'd already started on plans with Gale to go find Prim. She'd have to make new plans if she went somewhere else, and would have the added obstacle of not knowing her surroundings. A cautious alliance with Haymitch was probably her best bet at this point.

Of course, that didn't mean she had to _like_ it.

"Can I go? I have a lot of homework," she said through gritted teeth.

Haymitch was a little confused by her sudden change in demeanor, but waved her off. There had to be a lot going through her head and he definitely understood a desire to be alone.

 _That certainly could have gone better,_ he thought to himself with a sigh as he watched her disappear down the hallway and into her room.

* * *

The next day passed largely uneventfully, with a lot of silence on Katniss' part. She wasn't being outright hostile to him, but she certainly didn't seem to be thrilled to be in his presence.

And Haymitch was really starting to realize that he had little in the house to interest a sixteen year old girl. Considering Katniss was an independent and headstrong kid, he doubted she could be happy there that way for too long. So, when Chaff showed up on Saturday morning with Thresh, Haymitch handed over the keys and tasked him with keeping an eye on the gym. He'd been closing too early lately, or been having delayed opens, but at least they had been on weekdays - if he closed the gym on a weekend he might have a mutiny on his hands from his clients.

"Just… make sure nobody kills each other," he'd grumbled to Chaff.

"No promises."

Katniss had woken up that morning to the sounds of Haymitch getting ready for his day, and realized when he didn't come to wake her up that she wouldn't be going to school that day. There wasn't much she could do if she couldn't talk to Gale, and she fully intended to avoid Haymitch the whole time. She waited until she heard him go downstairs before she even got out of bed, and hurried to and from the kitchen.

Holed up in her bedroom with nobody to take care of, nothing to provide, and no plans to act on, she felt a bit bereft. After fleeing from Haymitch's presence the other night, she hadn't actually done the homework she had excused herself to do. She'd been too angry. Now, there wasn't much else _to_ do. So, when Haymitch ventured back upstairs, he found her on her bed with her books spread out all around her and a frankly obnoxious amount of food on the bedside table.

He didn't hide his amusement at this.

"You busy, sweetheart?" he asked. She shrugged without looking up. "Well… You should get up. We have some errands to run."

Katniss frowned and turned her attention away from her worksheet. "You're just gonna leave in the middle of the day?"

Haymitch shrugged. "I've got a buddy looking out for the place. You can meet him later."

He nodded to the black garbage bag on the floor beside the dresser, obviously still full and not yet unpacked. "You're gonna need more than whatever you've got in there to get through the colder months coming up, I'm sure."

Katniss frowned, realizing that _errands_ was code for _shopping_. She shifted uncomfortably on the bed, and sat up more fully.

"I don't need anything," she insisted. "You don't have to spend money on me."

Haymitch would beg to differ on that one. He was responsible for her - he wasn't about to let her go without at least a coat and some warmer shoes. He rolled his eyes.

"Well, I _want_ to. We're leaving the house in ten minutes, so get ready if you don't feel like going in your pajamas."

Which, incidentally, looked to be her school gym clothes. He added new pajamas to the list of things they needed to pick up, lest she catch her death of cold sleeping in shorts.

She shot him an irritated look as he left, and he heard her being unnecessarily loud and even slamming the door when she got up to change. Catching an attitude was at least better than sullen silence, so he counted that as a win.

"I'll be waiting in the truck for you!" he called. He couldn't help laughing at her frustrated noise, muffled by the bedroom door.

He was getting the cab warmed up by the time she stalked out. She got in and glared out the window, arms crossed over her chest.

"Lighten _up_ , kid," Haymitch said, pulling out of the alleyway as soon as she was buckled. "You'd think I was taking you to get a root canal, not school shopping…"

"I _have_ my own stuff, it's just at my house. I have a key, why can't we go there?" Katniss asked moodily.

Haymitch shrugged. If she actually could get in, he supposed he didn't see the harm in picking up her things - he'd just have to give them a once over to make sure they were appropriate. He doubted that, though. If she wasn't even eating, he didn't see how she could possibly have warm enough clothing, or school supplies.

"We'll swing by, and you can get your stuff, then we can fill in any gaps. Alright?"

Katniss had not at all expected him to listen to her, let alone agree.

"Oh," she said, darting a glance at him. She looked out the window again quickly, though. "Yeah. I guess."

"Teenagers," Haymitch muttered under his breath. "Then you gotta tell me where I'm going. You have your key, right? I'm not turning around if you don't, we can go _after_ we shop if that's the case-"

"I have it!" she cut him off. "Go toward my school."

He let her navigate them to her apartment complex, which was even shabbier than he had expected. It was in a grimy, seedy part of town, and he found himself standing a little closer to her than he usually would as she led him inside her building. Maybe it was ridiculous to be so protective, especially in her own neighborhood, but he couldn't help it. He got a bad vibe here, he could remember growing up in absolute bottom-of-the-barrel neighborhoods just like this when he was a kid. Where he lived now wasn't _superb_ , but it was a little nicer simply on the merit of being in a commercial neighborhood. At least, what passed for one in their district. This place, however? These apartments looked more like little shacks stacked one on top of the other, ready to topple over at the slightest provocation.

They got to her floor and, after they left the stairwell, Haymitch could tell which door was hers even before she stopped in front of it. One of the doorways down the hall had a large padlock on the knob.

He followed her anyway. Better to let her handle it in her own time. She stood in front of her apartment, a rusting number twelve on the doorway, and looked at the lock for a long minute.

"They didn't even call me," she said finally, turning to go back down the stairs. He followed her.

"They couldn't," he said, trying to lessen the blow. "I doubt they would have any idea how to."

After all, if he as her foster parent couldn't even get more than the vaguest details of her case out of anybody, he doubted an outsider to the situation could pry a phone number from her caseworker… or even know to contact Katniss in the first place. Unless it was just as obvious to outsiders as it was to him that she was the one looking after that household.

She didn't reply to him, instead stopping on the ground level to check their mail box. A notice of eviction was in the small handful of mail that had piled up.

"I thought you were supposed to get a thirty day notice," Katniss said, her voice rough and frustrated.

"We don't know who said what to who. For all we know, your mother contacted the property manager." Although Haymitch doubted that. "Or they just locked the place up when it was obvious nobody was coming and going."

Katniss shoved the envelopes back in the box and locked it back up again. She had no desire to read any of the mail or look at the bills. They weren't her problem anymore. None of it was. This place hadn't felt like _home_ in a long time, anyway… It was just a place she lived. Home was wherever Prim was. Katniss felt like she had failed to keep it all together, failed to give Primrose a home. If anybody deserved a good one, it was her kind, gentle, caring sister.

Katniss felt the inside of her nose stinging, her eyes welling with heat and moisture because of it, and practically ran out of the dingy lobby. Haymitch was on her heels, not wanting to lose her. He wasn't sure he didn't trust her not to run away at the first emotional upheaval.

Surprisingly, she just threw herself into the passenger seat of his truck. He got in in a less hurried manner, turning on the heater as soon as he turned the engine over.

"Sweetheart…" he started.

She shook her head. "Just go."

She didn't want to be here anymore.

Haymitch pursed his lips, looked at her, but eventually drove off. He could understand her not wanting to be around this place anymore.

Katniss' tears had been shut down easily enough. She sat in the truck and didn't even see the scenery, though her eyes were glued to the window. She made herself stop thinking about every way she'd failed or hurt her sister or her situation, instead ruminating on her plans. Thinking about how much of a relief it would be to see Prim again. She grit her teeth in an attempt to stop her lip from quivering.

Haymitch left her to her silence for a few minutes, but eventually turned on the cassette player with the last tape in it he'd been listening to. With the outside world looking bleak and cold, the inside of the truck full of comfortable warmth and good music, and Katniss trying to force herself to be calm, she eventually fell asleep. Haymitch looked over at her every so often, when they were stopped at a light. It was startling how much younger she seemed when she wasn't carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

He again cursed the system in his mind, and the city, and even her mother. This kid shouldn't have been taking care of herself, her parent, and their apartment. She should be worrying about things like boys and clothes, not worrying about him spending money on her, or being locked out of her home. It made him sick. It made him desperately want a drink. Mostly, it made him hotly angry on her behalf.

He had to drive a little ways, out of their district, until he got to the department store he usually shopped at. He parked and took the opportunity of a quiet, peaceful Katniss to sit with the window on his side rolled down and chain smoke a couple of cigarettes. After a morning like this one, he needed them.

He looked at her a while, slumped against the window as she was. Cute as she may be all curled up like that, he knew that from now on, she was gonna have a lot of waking hours to dwell on her mom and the loss of a home to go back to. Considering she'd pulled a disappearing act the very first day he had her, he could guess that she could probably find a lot more annoying ways to stir up trouble. He was gonna have to find something for her to put her energy into.

Of course, his mind said _boxing_. It was a great sport, full of kids just like her - poor and angry, full of spit and vinegar. But she was so skinny. Bumping into the heavy bag would probably put her flat on her ass. It seemed groceries were in order after this, if he wanted to feed her up. Hopefully, he could help her get her frustration at the world out in the gym, instead of letting it fester in that sullen little head of hers. Maybe working up an appetite there would be good for her, too. Not that her appetite necessarily needed much help, the kid could pack it away.

He put out his last cigarette just before he started smoking filter, then reached over and shook her shoulder.

"Hey. Sleeping beauty. Your adoring public awaits you," he drawled. She batted his hand away and sat up, looking grumpy.

She looked around them at the parking lot, then at the store in the distance, and slumped back into her seat. "I don't want to do this right now. Or ever, actually. You don't have to buy me anything. And I don't like shopping."

"Good, we have that in common. I hope you feel as secure in the knowledge of mutual unpleasantness ahead as I do," he said, getting out of the truck. When she made no move to follow him, he went around to the passenger side. She rolled down the window, and he leaned in. "Come on, kid. It's a chore just like any other. I know you got some bad news, but that doesn't mean that everything just stops."

"I don't even want anything," she said, and he shrugged as he opened her door.

"Well I want something: for you not to freeze to death every time you leave the house. Would reflect poorly on me."

She gave him a sneer to match his own.

He all but dragged her into the store, and was glad to note that he wasn't _too_ lost when he was in there. It soon became apparent that Katniss wasn't trying to earn any participation awards, however. She was just following him around, not looking at much and definitely not taking anything off the racks.

"Alright," he said after almost fifteen minutes of this. "Pick up the pace, or I'll start choosing things for you."

Katniss shrugged and looked mildly victorious. "Fine," she said. "Go right ahead."

Well, that wasn't the answer he was expecting. Most kids didn't want to be dressed by their forty year old guardians. Though, he supposed he should have known better to apply _most kids_ to Katniss. She was stubborn. Annoyingly so.

He gave her a long look, then shrugged and turned toward the kid's section.

She followed after him, not paying much attention until she noticed him picking out incredibly bright colors. She wasn't a bright colors sort of girl.

"Hey, that's got cartoons on it!" Katniss said, snatching a neon tee shirt from Haymitch's hand and putting it back on the rack. "This is _kids_ stuff!"

"To be fair, the bigger stuff will fit you," Haymitch said, taking a colorful dress from a hanger and holding it up in front of her slight frame.

Splotches of red bloomed on Katniss' face, and Haymitch had to use every bit of restraint in his body to not laugh at her when she slapped his hands away.

"You're an ass!" She snapped at him. He was pleased enough when she stomped over to a wall of clothes that was more appropriate for someone her age. She didn't seem to be bothered with checking sizes or prices as she gathered things to try on, but it was a start.

He grunted a "watch your language," in her direction, if only for the benefit of the elderly couple shopping nearby.

"Mr. Abernathy," she said through gritted teeth when he came back over to her side, "I've heard you use curse words that would curl a sailor's hair just to hear it."

" _I'm_ not in tenth grade." He made a face. "And please. Call me Haymitch."

"Okay, Haymitch. Go someplace else," Katniss said, heading for a changing room with an armload of clothes.

He watched her go. This kid. This kid was going to be more of a challenge than he had first believed.

Along the rest of the trip, he managed to drag her through picking up several warm outfits for school, pajamas, a coat, a scarf, and some boots. She pitched a fit about the cost of the boots, but Haymitch wasn't hearing a bit of it. If her clothes were threadbare, her shoes were deplorable. Considering Haymitch wasn't exactly of a mind to care much about how worn or used his own things got, the state of _hers_ alarming him was not something he took lightly.

"Keep it up, and I'm gonna get you some Reeboks too," Haymitch threatened after the umpteenth complaint about his spending too much on her.

She settled into a moody silence, trailing after him as he took her through the checkout.

The sales clerk there smiled brightly at them.

"How nice of your dad to take you shopping for the new fall trends," she said, her voice chipper.

Katniss gaped at the woman. How incredibly presumptuous... who could think _Haymitch_ was her dad? She turned sharply to look at him, but he just dumped all their purchases on the counter.

"Some people don't seem to appreciate the gesture," Haymitch said, and Katniss couldn't believe her ears. He wasn't protesting the title, he was standing there chatting with the clerk and scolding Katniss while doing it!

"I'm going to wait in the truck!" she announced heatedly.

As she strode off, the sales girl looked between Haymitch and Katniss.

"It's about time for an attitude adjustment," Haymitch said shortly, and the clerk nodded. She had little else to comment on as she finished bagging his purchases.

He was not met with quite so much silence when he followed in Katniss' footsteps.

"What was _that?_ " she demanded, as he slung the shopping into the bed of the truck.

"What was what?" he asked in forced obliviousness.

"That lady… She called you… Well, you know what she called you," Katniss said, ducking into the passenger side of the truck before he could say anything.

"That mistake is going to happen," he said when he was finally settled into the driver's side. "You can correct them if you want to, sweetheart, but I always think it's best not to out my kids as foster kids unless they tell me they want me to. People like to comment on families."

Katniss wouldn't look at him, and Haymitch was feeling a sudden urge to march right back into that store and give that sales clerk a piece of his mind. Their outing thus far hadn't exactly been _fun_ , but he'd felt like they were _getting_ somewhere with each other. Now, it would seem Katniss' flighty nature was rearing its head again.

He supposed he'd have to learn to be okay with that. If she was flighty, then she was flighty. They could deal with these sorts of problems as they came along.

To save himself an uncomfortably silent drive, he turned the music back on and left Katniss to her worrying.

* * *

A while after they had returned home, Katniss was alone in her room. Thankfully, she was far away from Haymitch, who was downstairs minding his gym. It was a little weird to know that at any point during the day, there was a group of sweaty boxers hanging out and beating each other up directly below her room, but that wasn't the weirdest thing about being here.

She kept getting distracted while she folded and put away not only the things Haymitch had bought her, but her clothes from home. Every time her hand brushed over the difference between the pilled, over-worn fabric of what little she'd brought here and the softer, well made items she'd protested acquiring in the first place, Haymitch's words rang in her head.

 _People like commenting on families,_ he had told her. Families? Is that what Haymitch thought of her, that she was family?

She was a ward of the state. They were stuck with each other. They were business partners of a sort, considering the stipend he got from the state to house her. At best, they were allies - united for a common cause, destined to part ways in the end. As far as she knew, he wanted her to go home just as much as she wanted to get back. But what if that wasn't true? What _did_ Haymitch want for her?

She fell back on her bed, feeling annoyed with herself. She was being stupid, she knew she was. She shouldn't be concerning herself with anything Haymitch thought about her. He wasn't the important part of this equation, he was incidental. Nice, in his own strange, surly way, but not important. _Prim is important,_ she reminded herself. _Nobody else._

Being harsh was _necessary_.

She didn't know how long she laid there, but after a long while, she heard movement in the apartment. Haymitch eventually came to stand somewhere near her doorway, but her back was turned to it. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was there - he wasn't exactly quiet.

"You could take a picture. It would last longer," she suggested, still not turning over.

"I thought you were asleep," Haymitch said, and she lifted her head enough to look over her shoulder.

"And why would you want to watch me sleep?"

"Was debating on whether to wake you up with a loud noise or a lot of cold water," he said gruffly. "It's the middle of the day. Although you seem to like shutting yourself in here at all times of the day, so that's probably moot. What do you _do_?"

Katniss shrugged. She was not about to participate in _bonding_. Whether Haymitch was just annoyed that she seemed to be a layabout or whether he actually cared about what she liked to do with her spare time, it didn't really matter. It was too close, too personal, and she wasn't going to allow it.

"I _used_ to work," she said, finally laying her head back on the pillow. He didn't deserve her past, her stories of Gale and fishing and being hungry, but together. He didn't deserve the future she was determining for herself, either, finding Prim and then… Then _what_? Running away, maybe? She hadn't quite decided what to do once she was reunited with her sister yet. But even if her plan only went as far ahead as the very first goal she needed to accomplish, it was still better than no plan at all.

He made a noise that Katniss didn't interpret as a pleased one, but he did leave her room, so she counted it as a victory. Maybe while she was here, she could catch up on sleep anyway.

Not quite. Almost as soon as she shut her eyes, she felt a soft, abrupt weight settling over her body. She batted the shorts off of her and shot up on the bed. More specifically, it was boxing shorts and a sport top. Haymitch had oh-so-kindly dropped them on her.

"You don't need to be in here all damn day," he said, and she glared up at him. He matched it without missing a beat. "Put those on and come downstairs. Don't bother with shoes."

"It's cold!" Katniss argued.

"You'll keep warm enough."

"What if I don't want to box?" Katniss said, looking down at the clothes with distaste. They had seen better days. She took a cautious sniff, and was at least glad to find that they smelled sort of stale and disused, but clean. Haymitch scoffed. "What! How am I supposed to know who wore these last?"

"Don't worry about it," Haymitch grunted. This didn't necessarily stop Katniss from her worrying, however. "They're clean, you're coming downstairs in them. End of story."

Katniss swore at his retreating figure, feeling rankled when she heard him laugh in response.

 _What is that man's obsession with dressing me up?_ She wondered. Shortly, she considered just throwing them on the floor, rolling over, and actually going to sleep. However, what little image she'd formed in her mind of a kind version of Haymitch was rapidly disappearing. The last thing she wanted was for him to come up here and _actually_ throw water on her.

She tugged the shorts on, got into the sport top, and pinned her braid up on her head. She had no idea who, if anybody, she would be fighting against, but she wouldn't put it past Haymitch to tug on her hair if it was swinging free.

She felt a little odd descending the stairs barefoot, and soon she was shivering in the gym. A heavy coil of nervous discomfort settled low in her tummy, as she looked around at Haymitch's clients. This place was a lot more lively in the daytime on a weekend. Then again, it might be this lively all the time… She just never bothered to come in here during open hours on the rare times she was around for them.

Now? Electric light bathed every square inch of main gym space, from the bags, to the open floor space, to the ring itself where one set of opponents was currently sparring. There were people all over the place. It was almost as bad as gym class. She'd never been a big fan of that, either.

"And there's sleeping beauty herself," Haymitch said, startling her as he walked up beside her.

"You didn't say I was gonna be working out in a building full of old guys," Katniss fired back.

"Excuse me for not running the most popular establishment for young people on the block," Haymitch said with heavy sarcasm. "Now shut your yap for ten minutes."

Katniss clenched her teeth, halting the comment that wanted to slip out from getting her in hot water.

She followed him to a bit of open space, navigating around people doing floor exercises. He handed her a jump rope.

She took it, but looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"What? Never seen one of those before? I know you're allergic to fun, after all." Haymitch took the plastic handles at the ends and placed them firmly in each of Katniss' hands, curling her fingers around them. "It's good cardio. Get jumping."

He went to walk away, but Katniss was confused.

"Wait! When do I get to punch people?"

"I thought you didn't want to box," Haymitch said, then continued on his way.

Katniss narrowed her eyes, said a few choice words, but eventually started jumping rope.

She _wasn't_ happy about it, though.

"I'm not having any fun!" she announced the next time Haymitch walked nearby.

"Good!" he called. "Wouldn't want you to have an allergic reaction!"

Naturally, the rest of that day's workout was fueled by spite.

By the time dinner rolled around, Katniss was almost falling face-first into her mashed potatoes. She was able to climb into bed and fall asleep almost immediately, her worn body and full belly seeming much easier to listen to than the anxieties of the day.


End file.
